My encounter with the 12th Doctor
by OzrekO'North
Summary: On a challenge, I wrote a short story describing my own encounter with an incarnation of the Doctor. Heavily influenced by Douglas Adams style, my zany adventure takes me across the universe with the wild-eyed Scottish Doctor. Hope you enjoy.


I was walking down the alley on my way home from the store, when I saw a pink sofa moving on it's own. I heard no motor nor saw anything attached to it, yet it zigged and zagged around the alley as though at random, hovering ever so slightly above the ground.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, looked again and not only was it still there, but was headed straight for me! Not having enough time to dodge, I jumped up and onto the surprisingly soft, pink, floating, self-propelled sofa which smelled strangely of patchouli. Seated there, I looked forward the way I was now headed, and reality itself seemed to warp around me, as though I was going faster than light from right there in the alley toward an infinite whiteness which while indefinite was not blinding. A slight jerking motion accompanied by a sudden drop landing from about a half meter off the ground ended what must have been a hallucination, though I had no explanation for how I was now in a field of strangely teal grass.

I stepped off of the sofa, and it immediately sped away from me horizontally, turned yellow, zigged toward the setting sun on the horizon, and was out of sight before I realized that I had two shadows. That setting sun seemed oddly out of place with the level of natural illumination this field was bathed in, and looking up, I discovered why. A brighter yellow sun shone overhead in the noontime position, while a smaller orange sun set on the distant horizon. Now, I was worried.

Looking toward the setting sun, I noticed the outline of a city with multiple towering skyscrapers. I figured that the sofa, being the way I got here, was likely the only means of my return. Seeing as it went toward the city, and that I may need provisions should my stay here last too long, I decided to head there, seeing no real other option available.

After about 4 hours of travel through open grassland, seeing strange butterfly-things and the occasional furry mammal of some distinction I'm sure doesn't exist on my planet, I reached the outer limits of what appeared to be a very advanced civilization. A vibrant and well-populated city stood before me, apparently so self-sustaining that its inhabitants never needed to venture outside, hence the pristine wilderness surrounding it.

I walked down a few streets, trying not to stare or balk at the several aliens I saw amongst the well-integrated society within the city. A green child (at least I believe he was a youth, and that it was a he) with antennae and a polka-dotted tail offered me a newspaper. It was printed on a silky paper across which the alphabetical characters of several languages rolled in ticker-like fashion, and upon contact with my flesh it somehow automatically detected my spoken language and instantly everything on the page changed to modern English.

"Ten chupkas", he said, apparently indicating that I should pay him. I looked at the top line of the newspaper and read the date: 5,000,000,002 AD. I dropped the paper, it's print reverting to the several prominent languages it previously displayed upon the moment it touched the ground. The green child swiftly grabbed it up with a scowl, muttering "Kapchaka" in a way that was unmistakably an insult.

I wandered for a while, oblivious to most of the wonders around me, absolutley taken aback by the realization that I'd travelled so far into the future, and was likely stuck here. Wonder sank into depression, and was speeding towards panic when a tall man wearing what appeared to be a magician's suitcoat and wayfarer sunglasses ran past me, followed by a blue spotted fellow with gills behind his ears. Turning to watch, it seemed they were running together, rather than one from the other, for they stopped, the man panting for breath while the ichthyoid person took a flask from the bandalier he wore and poured it over his head, soaking his gills, which seemed to have the same effect of aiding in catching his breath that hyperventilating accomplished for the man. Panting, the man pulled out an instrument from his coat pocket that glowed at the tip and made a strange noise. The blue person retrieved a large tablet-like device and began interfacing with it by scratching his nail along its gel-like surface which would appear to heal after each stroke. His gargling mode of speech was apparently a language the tall man understood but could not articulate, for he responded in English, with a Scottish accent.

"Well if you hadn't been mucking about peeking into 21st century American history with a Delta Oculum while I was landing my ship next door, you'd still be pleasantly immersed whilst I went on about my business. Aye, I knew I was leaking antimatter, why do you think I came to this eon?" The blue, gilled man gurgled some more, not bothering to look up from his device's display screen. The apparently Scottish man replied "Look, I'm a time traveller, not a bloody interior decorator!"

My heart jumped. Did I just hear him say he's a time traveller? Just the ticket I needed out of here! I approched the man and he stood up straightly, looking at me with an air of authority. Seeing that I already had his attention, I began; "Excuse me, um, I did I just hear you mention you're a time traveller?" I hoped that didn't sound as dumb as I thought it did. His condescending look confirmed that it had.

He rolled his eyes, looked at the blue man, glanced at the alien device, then looked back at me. "Supposing I was, what's it to you?" He crossed his arms, feigning momentary interest in what I might have to say.

"I'm, I don't know how to really explain this, but I'm from the year 2016, on Earth, and there was this sofa, and..."

His eyes got huge. I had thought they were opened as far as they got already, but apparently the Scots have a means of retracting their eyelids completely into their heads when really intrigued by something, and I definitely had his attention. "THE SOFA!" he exclaimed, slapping his left hand on the shoulderpad of the blue man, "I told you! And..." he pulled out the wand-like device with the glowing tip, "I'm willing to bet..." he waved it around me like a metal detector wand, then held it up to his face to read a result, "His aura has the residual signature to locate it!" He grinned as if he'd won a Nobel Prize, then in the same instant turned a scowling face to me and said "Come along!" more as a command than a friendly suggestion. The blue man indicated a direction with a nod, and I followed the two as they ran that way at top speed.

I had thought we would be chasing the floating sofa through some futuristic alleyways, but nothing so adventurous occurred. Instead, we ran to a stairway which decended several stories. At a certain depth, the causeway partitioned into an open aquarium on the left side, into which the blue man jumped headfirst, swimming swiftly to the lab at the bottom level. At the bottom of the stairs was an open-air portion of laboratory, and what had to be a standing wall of water restrained by some technology I couldn't begin to comprehend, out of which the blue man calmly walked, approached a device on the open-air side, and spoke into it. The device translated his voice into a deep bass with a slight Australian accent. Turning to look at me, he said "Thank you, the sofa should return any moment." Not exactly what I'd expected to hear, but definitely what I wanted to. Almost instantly, the sofa came gliding down the stairs and stopped, hovering, before a billiard table-sized instrumant in the center of the laboratory.

The tall man gestured toward the sofa and said "Get on, go home, get some sleep." He nodded to the scientist and turned toward a blue box in the corner which had something police-ish about it, I didn't really hang around to find out, figuring this was my chance and I didn't want to miss it. No sooner did my butt hit the seat than I was back in the alley, falling to the concrete from a half-meter above it as the sofa vanished out from under me and into thin air.

Nobody's gonna believe me...


End file.
